


Unmasked!

by kagayaki



Category: Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre, 新日本プロレス | New Japan Pro-Wrestling
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Kayfabe Compliant, Masks, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-13 06:30:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21489898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kagayaki/pseuds/kagayaki
Summary: When Kyosuke went to Mexico, they gave him a mask.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18





	Unmasked!

When Kyosuke went to Mexico, they gave him a mask.

He didn’t want one. Masked wrestlers were cool and all, but he’d never envisioned himself as one of them. He had been told he had a good face for wrestling - expressive and reasonably handsome - and he intended to use it. He didn’t want to cover it up.

But he was just a Young Lion on excursion, barely one step above a cable-minder, and this promotion didn’t much care about his opinion. He’d have to prove himself before he had any say, work his way up the power structure rung by rung. If he could. If he even wanted to bother - this was temporary, a couple years before they’d send him back home and he’d be free to choose his own path.

They told him to wear the mask, so Kyosuke shrugged and wore it.

“It’ll be good for you,” Okumura said, with an irritating confidence. Kyosuke didn’t believe him, but Okumura was his sempai here. Kyosuke shut up, kept his head down, and filled his role.

The mask was itchy and uncomfortable. Too hot, too sweaty, a pain to wash. Silly-looking and brightly-colored, the opposite of what Kyosuke would've chosen. The whole gimmick was silly - a demon who terrorized naughty children, nothing anyone could possibly take seriously. Too ridiculous to care about too much, or to invest himself in.

Okumura was right. The mask was good for him.

Wearing the mask, Kyosuke didn’t have to care about win-loss records. It was Namajague losing, not Mikami Kyosuke. He stopped being so conservative in the ring, stopped caring so much about his image or his reputation. He loosened up. He had fun - a different kind of fun than the sadistic, dangerous glee of systematically grinding Hiromu into the canvas loss by loss back when they’d been Young Lions. He started smiling through his matches, even if no one could see it. He tried things he wouldn’t have tried without the mask to hide behind.

He took a strange joy in not being recognized. Not like he was well-known, here or anywhere, but getting booed in the ring, and leaving all of that behind him simply by taking off his mask and changing out of his gear? It was a good feeling. Powerful, in a way Kyosuke hadn’t considered. He liked it more than he’d expected to.

Before his first _ lucha de apuesta, _ Kyosuke didn’t feel any hesitation.

“I hate wearing this thing anyway,” he told Okumura. “It’d be a mercy to get rid of it.”

“You’d better give it your all,” Okumura growled back. “I don’t need a haircut.”

Kyosuke assured him he would. He pulled his mask over his head, definitely and unfortunately not for the last time, adjusted it over his eyes, and waited for their music.

They lost.

Kyosuke just sat there after taking the final pin, trying to catch his breath. Confetti fell everywhere, carpeting the canvas and sticking to his sweaty skin. The screaming crowd, the echoing airhorns, the shouts of his opponents, the buzz of the electric razor, all whirled around him in an indistinct and dizzying hum.

Kyosuke didn’t want to remove his mask.

The realization hit him like a punch, knocking the wind out of him and leaving him dizzy. 

He didn’t want to lose his mask. He didn’t want to take it off. He didn’t want to show his face to the crowd, to admit to his real name. He didn’t want to be Mikami Kyosuke. Not here, in front of all these people. He wanted to stay Namajague, even for just one more moment. To hide his true face, for as long as he could.

Someone started speaking to him in Spanish. Kyosuke’s comprehension was better than it used to be, but his head was spinning. He didn’t understand. Then someone’s hands were at the back of his neck, working at the knot in his laces. Rey, maybe? Kyosuke’s instinct was to fight him off, but he’d lost; this was happening no matter what. At least he could face it with some dignity.

He sat there and let Rey undo the laces, but lifted the mask from his own face before anyone else could take it from him. 

The lights felt brighter without it. He squinted and fought the urge to hide his face.

Kyosuke told himself he preferred to fight without a mask.

It was more comfortable. Especially on summer nights, in small crowded venues, under hot lights. The mask was a pain. Old-fashioned (but maybe Kyosuke liked old-fashioned, even if he wished he didn’t). Stuffy and sweaty. It interfered with his peripheral vision. It was a pain to wash. He was better off without it.

He told himself that, but he couldn’t really make himself believe it.

He tried half-covering his face with paint. It helped, a little. Not as good as a mask, but better than nothing.

He finally got called back to Japan, eventually. He had a mask made before he left. A mask that could be taken seriously. One that suited him. Frightening and beautiful.

He’d go back home, but not as Mikami Kyosuke. As someone else. He wasn’t ready to show the world his true face.


End file.
